


May - "Put A Pillow On Your Fridge Day"

by TheWorldIsYou13



Series: A Calendar of Stories [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, F/M, Friendship, Humor, Weird days of the year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11025732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWorldIsYou13/pseuds/TheWorldIsYou13
Summary: The Doctor finds Rose one morning trying to put her pillow somewhere very interesting indeed...





	May - "Put A Pillow On Your Fridge Day"

**Author's Note:**

> So here's the installment for May, finally! Initially I was going to do something surrounding the Bank Holiday tomorrow, but decided to google other things that happened in May and that was when I came across this. I thought it was random and wanted to try and write something slightly humorous and very light-hearted for it. Hope it turned out alright. You've probably worked out by now that humour isn't exactly my strongest point :P

Having travelled with humans for the majority of his time as a time traveller, the Doctor had grown accustomed to their strange little ways and the, quick frankly, bizarre things they liked to celebrate. It seemed that every day was ‘national-’ or ‘international-something-day’. From Chocolate to Lost Socks, humans had a day for everything – no matter how weird it was.

And so, you would think that, by now, he was used to one of his companions waking up, looking at their calendars and saying: “Doctor, mind if we open the doors near some black hole or something, I need to ‘let go’ of all of my odd socks.”

Well, there, dear friends, is where you are mistaken. And today was yet another day where he would discover another one of Earth’s – rather inventive – celebratory days.

It had started out as a normal morning (well, as normal as any morning can be when you live in a bigger-on-the-inside Time Machine and, therefore, such a thing as ‘morning’ doesn’t really exist), when the Doctor made his way from where he spent his ‘nights’ into the galley. He knew it was going to be a while before Rose would allow anyone to wake her up, so he decided that it would be best to grab a cup of tea before braving her room. He was tired from all the adventuring they had done over the last few days, all that time spent running up and down corridors starting to get to him, and he knew that he was going to have to try and catch a few hours’ sleep at some point soon. However, there would be no time for sleeping now, he knew exactly where he wanted to take Rose today.

It was because he was slightly more tired than usual that he failed to notice what was happening in the galley as he stepped inside.

Seemingly oblivious, the Doctor went straight towards the kettle, hardly registering the fact that there was already enough water inside and that the device was still slightly warm from recent use. It wasn’t until he had flicked the switch at the side, that a voice from the other end of the galley made him jump.

“Morning!”

Startled, the Doctor turned and saw Rose standing on the toes, struggling to put something on the tall fridge.

“Rose, don’t startle me like that. Took ten years off me, that did!” The Doctor told her, letting out a long breath when he realised there wasn’t a hostile alien on board the ship.

“Sorry,”

It was then that he took in what she was trying to do.

“Um, Rose, what exactly are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to put this on top of here,” she told him. “But someone decided that having a tall fridge that no one could actually reach the top of was a good idea.”

“Excuse me, it’s not like you ever go in there for anything other than milk with all the tea you drink. And besides, if you do need something else, the TARDIS brings it down a few shelves.”

“Dunno why we can’t just have a normal sized fridge. You go on about how it’s all for ‘storage reasons’ but, just how much storage do we need?!”

“I liked to be prepared,” the Doctor retorted.

Rose stood properly and looked at him, eyebrow raised. It was at that moment, the Doctor saw what she had been attempting to put on top of the fridge.

“Any particular reason why you were trying to put a pillow on top of the fridge?” He asked in amusement. “Or is your bed not good enough anymore?”

Rose laughed in mock humour. “Very funny. And yes actually, back on Earth today is ‘put a pillow on you fridge day’ – mum told me.”

If the Doctor had finished making his tea by now, he would have chocked on it attempting not to laugh. “I’m sorry – what?”

“Put a pillow on your fridge day,”

“Why on earth would anyone want – or need – to put a pillow on their fridge?”

“It’s a tradition,”

“Might I ask from where?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m sure you can look it up,”

“I don’t know if I want to,” the Doctor told her, pouring the now-finished-boiling water into his mug.

“Well, then suit yourself,”

“I will, thanks,”

They lapsed into silence for a few moments. The only sounds available to the ear were that of a teaspoon hitting the sides of a mug and the quiet, yet often, soft sounds of Rose still struggling with the pillow.

“Do you want me to put it up there for you?” The Doctor asked suddenly. “Because, regardless of how adorable you look trying to get that thing up there, I can’t keep letting you struggle pointlessly.”

“You think me struggling is ‘adorable’?”

“No…”

“But you just…”

“Here, give it to me,” the Doctor put down his mug and took the pillow from her, trying to avoid putting his foot in it any more than he already had.

Stretching up a little, he managed to get the pillow on top of the fridge before turning back to Rose with a smile of triumph on his face.

“See, easy. You’re just short,”

“Says the man who still had to stretch to get it up there. Face it, your fridge is too tall,”

“I got it up there, didn’t I?”

Rose decided that there was no use in trying to argue back.

“Okay, well, now that’s done, I’m going to get ready for the day. See you later,”

“Right, okay, see you in a bit,” the Doctor replied.

“Oh, and for the record, I’m a perfectly average height; you’re just tall,”

She left before he had a chance to answer.

Once she was gone, the Doctor looked up at the pillow sitting proudly on the fridge as he sipped his tea. He couldn’t get over how odd all of this was. Sure, he had told Rose that he didn’t really want to look up the history behind this particular tradition, for fear that it might lead to some revealing revelations about human history that they had neglected to mention in the books he’d read over the years; but, truth was, he was interested.

Putting down his empty mug, the Doctor made his way into the control room. He was sure he’d have something in the library archives, but decided that asking the TARDIS was a much quicker way of finding out what the hell this was all about. Still, anything was better than ‘step in a puddle and splash your friend day’ – it hadn’t been until the following day that he found out about that one, meaning he didn’t have an excuse to get Rose back for getting him soaking wet on a freezing cold day in January! Fat lot of use his ‘superior biology’ had been that day.

He found the answer soon enough and, thankfully, it wasn’t something weird. It was all to do with good luck and the fact that people in both Europe and North America would put cloths in their larders once a year. Of course, that would mean that the real tradition now would be to put the pillow _inside_ the fridge and for a moment the Doctor found himself wishing that Rose had done just that. He could’ve made some remark about her sleepwalking again (it wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something amusing in her sleep). After all, he was looking for something else to embarrass her with the next time they went to her mother’s.

“I see you looked it up after all, then?” A voice behind him spoke.

Turning around, the Doctor placed a hand on his chest. “Rose, you have got to stop doing that.”

“I dunno, I quite like making you jump,”

“Yeah, well, how would you like it if I did that to you repeatedly?”

“You couldn’t sneak up on me even if you tried,” Rose retorted. “You don’t know the meaning of ‘light footed’. Do your converse have led soles or something?”

“No,”

“I rest my case then,” she said smiling before bouncing up beside him. “So, what did you find out?”

“Well, thankfully there’s more reasoning behind it than ‘Garlic Day’ – so no having to air out the TARDIS once this day’s over. God, the kitchen stank for weeks – as did your room! And my rule still stands by the way, no garlicy foods anywhere near the bedrooms, thank you very much. It’s a good thing we didn’t bump into any vampires after that,”

“Doctor,” Rose said, her tone level.

“What?”

“You’re babbling,”

“Oh, right, sorry, where was I? Oh, that’s right – ‘Pillow on Your Fridge Day’!” He said happily, getting himself back on track. Rose just simply rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, it all stems back to before the invention of the refrigerator – _wonderful_ invention, don’t you think? Well, before fridges came about, they used to have things called larders, right?”

“Right,”

“So anyway, for good luck, people in North America and in Europe would place a cloth inside the larder, once a year, for good luck,”

“That’s it?”

“That is it, yes,”

“Wow…seems an odd tradition to carry on, really. I mean, no one I know has a larder,”

“Well, yeah, but it’s for good luck, isn’t it? So there was probably some superstitious human out there who didn’t want to stop doing it just because he now had a lovely, tall fridge in his house and the rest of you decided to carry on as well,”

“You make us sound like sheep,”

“Well, you are in some respects,”

“Thanks,”

“I still love you all regardless,”

“Thank you,”

“So there we have it. And that’s why you were struggling to put a pillow on top of your fridge this morning,” the Doctor turned the monitor off and turned to Rose.

“Right, so where do you want to go today?”

“Hmm, how about we go back into the past somewhere and create our own tradition. Or we can find out who you can thank for ‘Banana Day’,”

The Doctor grinned happily, “Rose Tyler, I like your style!”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, and all the days mentioned in this fic are actual days! I googled them. :D
> 
> (And finally - remember to put a pillow on you fridge, tomorrow! ;P)


End file.
